Recently, digital electronic devices such as mobile computers and cellular phones are now widely used. Nationwide digital terrestrial broadcasting will start in near future. Receivers for digital terrestrial broadcasting are digital electronic devices such as a liquid crystal display (LCD) and a plasma display. Such digital electronic devices include many large scale integrated circuits (LSI's).
Power circuits constituting digital electronic devices such as a liquid crystal display (LCD) and a plasma display include many capacitors for bypassing. A multilayer ceramic capacitor used for those devices having a high relative dielectric constant (for example, see the Patent Document 1) is used if a high capacitance is required. On the other hand, a temperature-compensating type multilayer ceramic capacitor having a low change rate of capacitance (for example, see the Patent Document 2) is used if a temperature characteristic of a capacitance is important even though the dielectric constant is low.
A multilayer ceramic capacitor having a high relative dielectric constant disclosed in the Patent Document 1, however, is constituted by containing dielectric crystals in a dielectric ceramic which has a ferroelectric property. Therefore, in the multilayer ceramic capacitor, a temperature change rate of the relative dielectric constant of dielectric ceramics is high, and hysteresis indicating dielectric polarization is high. Consequently, audible noise sounds tend to be easily generated on a power supply circuit due to an electrically induced strain. This is an obstacle for using such capacitors in plasma displays and the like.
On the other hand, in a temperature-compensating type multilayer ceramic capacitor, the dielectric layer constituting the capacitor has a paraelectric property. Therefore, the hysteresis indicating dielectric polarization does not appear. Thereby, the temperature-compensating type multilayer ceramic capacitor is advantageously free from the electrically induced strain inherent to the ferroelectric property. However, since the temperature-compensating type multilayer ceramic capacitor has a low relative dielectric constant, its accumulating capability is low and performances as a bypass capacitor are unsatisfied. It is a problem.
In addition, a multilayer ceramic capacitor used as a passive component is generally attached on a substrate constituting the above-described power circuit and the like by a soldering method using a reflow process. In this case, mechanical damage such as a crack or delamination may occur on a main body of the multilayer ceramic capacitor due to thermal stress caused by molten solder. Therefore, there is a need for a multilayer ceramic capacitor that has a high relative dielectric constant that is stable over temperature (has a stable temperature characteristic). Therefore, the multilayer ceramic capacitors are required to withstand a rapid heating or a rapid cooling in a soldering process and have an sufficient thermal shock resistance for preventing delamination or cracks.    [Patent Document 1] Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2001-89231    [Patent Document 2] Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2001-294481